Bulbs Bulbs Bulbs …

I got a little carried away at Lowe’s last weekend and bought this ginormous pile of bulbs. There are 80 King Arthur daffodils (the really big ones), 160 mixed tulips, 100 scilla and almost 100 crocus bulbs. Oh, and some narcissus — most of which I’ll put away for winter because I like to force them in the house — Patrick used to hate the smell of them, but since it’s four years today that he made that terrible error in judgement (don’t drive drunk, people), I guess one upside is that I can force as many narcissus bulbs in the winter as I want to. You have to look at the positives in these situations.

It’s a big weekend for projects. The pork bellies are in! So it’s time to start the pancetta, and perhaps the Americanized version of Jacquy’s terrine from Pork and Sons, one of my favorite cookbooks of the year (I’m subbing moose liver for pork liver, bourbon for armangac). Not only are the pork bellies here but I got my first delivery of real milk yesterday …

My point-and-shoot doesn’t show the layer of cream very well, but there was nearly a pint of gorgeous cream on the top of this milk. I ladeled it off, added some buttermilk, shook it all up and have set it out to make créme fraiche. I also scalded a little more than a quart’s worth and I’m making yogurt using these terrific instructions posted by a professor of biology and chemistry in Ohio. I’ll post a photo if it comes out okay. A gallon of milk a week is sort of a lot for me, but I like the challenge of figuring out what to do with it — learning to make yogurt, or mozzarella so that I don’t waste a homegrown product. It’s akin to my feeling about learning to cook the game my friends shoot — my milk lady raised the nice Jersey cows, she milks them herself and delivers this gorgeous gallon jar of milk to me. Now it’s up to me to figure out how to make the most out of what feels to me like a gift (even though I pay her for milk). So I’m learning to make yogurt, and cheese, and pudding also occurred to me the other day — a nice vanilla pudding. Yum.

I’m not entirely clear on the legal status of raw milk here — and my Milk Lady isn’t quite a dairy — she’s a rancher with a small herd of dairy cows. But yeah, I’m SO glad I found her. The yogurt was amazing — it’s really really thick (which might be because I used a lot of starter) and not runny at all — I’m so happy because I hate thin runny yogurt.

So you're telling me a white terrorist responsible for the killing of 9 churchgoers is able to be detained safely and will probably be afforded a trial, but children like Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin and Aiyana Stanley-Jones (none of which committed any grievance other than existing while black) absolutely… [more]